by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

An unusually busy Tuesday brings the first of three distinguished British choirs to Cleveland during October. Stephen Layton will lead Polyphony (pictured) in works by William Byrd, Thomas Tallis, Francis Poulenc, Arvo Pärt, Eric Whitacre, Charles Villiers Stanford and others tonight at 7:30 in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights.

What amounts to a mini-festival of English vocal ensembles continues on October 28 in Oberlin’s Finney Chapel with Voces8, and on October 30 with The Gesualdo Six at the Church of the Saviour in Cleveland Heights. And later this season, St. Paul’s will present the Westminster Abbey Choir on April 29, 2026.

But getting back to Tuesday: today at Noon, organist Jonathan Moyer will play selections from Olivier Messiaen’s Le Livre du Saint–Sacrement at the Church of the Covenant in University Circle, and tonight at 7:30, the Cleveland Chamber Music Society will host the Belcea Quartet at Disciples Christian Church and Tuesday Musical will present pianist Marc-André Hamelin in major works by Ludwig van Beethoven, Robert Schumann, and Maurice Ravel at E.J. Thomas Hall in Akron.

For more information, please visit our Concert Listings.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On October 21, 1896 American composer and conductor Howard Hanson was born in Wahoo, Nebraska, 26 years after its founding by Czech, German, and Scandinavian settlers (and named after the eastern wahoo, a shrub indigenous to the area). [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

American experimental composer Charles Ives, whose day job was serving as executive of several insurance companies in New York City, was born on October 20, 1875 in Danbury, Connecticut.

Regarded as an American Original, early on Ives was influenced by the whole panoply of 19th century music he encountered as a young man as well as such sonic experiences as hearing bands playing simultaneously in small-town parades.

Having formally studied with Horatio Parker at Yale, Ives later went off on his own, experimenting with polytonality and polyrhythm, microtones, tone clusters, and improvisatory elements. Somewhat mysteriously, he stopped composing in the late 1920s, well before his death in 1954.

An hour-long documentary by Anne-Kathrin Peitz, The Unanswered Ives: Portrait of a composer, Wall Street giant and pioneer of sound, is available for subscribers on Medici-TV.

Listen to a performance of Ives’ First Violin Sonata by Stefan Jackiw and Jeremy Denk here, and of his Fourth Sonata by Jinjoo Cho and Shuai Wang here. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS:

This weekend, two of Northeast Ohio’s peripatetic instrumental ensembles are touring the metropolitan area to perform multiple concerts in venues near you. Others are staying put to inaugurate new venues or are dressing up for All Hallows’ Eve.

On Friday at 7:30 at St. Jerome Catholic Church, soprano Kirsten Kunkle will join conductor John McLaughlin Williams and CityMusic Cleveland in a program featuring works by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Samuel Barber, George Frederick McKay, and the world premiere of Chickasaw composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate’s Ko’koomfena (Our Grandmother), a CityMusic commission.

The free concert will travel to the Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus on Saturday at 7:30, and to Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art on Sunday at 2:30.

Beginning on Friday at 7:30 at Akron’s Westminster Presbyterian Church, Cleveland’s period instrument ensemble Les Délices will tour “Bohemian Rhapsody,” featuring works by Franz Krommer, Georg Druschetzky, and Katerina Victoria Dusikova-Cianchettini, as well as Mozart’s Oboe Quartet (starring Debra Nagy), and a collection of traditional Czech folk tunes arranged for the ensemble. This program will reappear on Saturday at 7:30 at Forest Hill Presbyterian Church, and on Sunday at 4 pm at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church in Rocky River. You’ll need tickets. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30,  CityMusic Cleveland begins its current four-concert tour of the area with “Sounds of Home” at Fairmount Presbyterian Church in Cleveland Heights (pictured). John McLaughlin Williams conducts, and soprano Kirsten Kunkle will be featured in music by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Samuel Barber, George Frederick McKay, and the world premiere of Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate’s Ko’koomfena (Our Grandmother), a CityMusic commission. It’s free.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1621, Dutch organist and composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck died In Amsterdam, where he spent his entire career, although his fame spread elsewhere. He was known in Germany for his mentoring of young organists and in England for his keyboard compositions, which found their way into the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. [Read more…]

MIRÓ QUARTET PHOTO GALLERY:

Oberlin College and Conservatory have posted photos of the Miró Quartet’s complete Beethoven string quartet cycle celebrating the 30th anniversary of the ensemble’s founding at Oberlin in six concerts last weekend. Pictured: Saturday afternoon’s performance at the Allen Memorial Art Museum (credit: Abe Frato).

HAPPENING TODAY:

Unless you’ve already reserved free tickets to tonight’s recital by James (Zijian) Wei, the 2024 Mixon First Prize winner of the Cleveland International Piano Competition, you’re out of luck – the event in Kulas Hall at CIM is sold out.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

German philosopher, philologist, poet, cultural critic and sometime composer Friedrich Nietzsche was born on this date in 1844. [Read more…]

R.I.P. SHIRLEY MORGENSTERN TOPILOW

Conductor Carl Topilow announced on social media over the weekend that his wife, Shirley Morgenstern Topilow, with whom he co-founded the Cleveland Pops Orchestra, passed away at home on Saturday at the age of 79. Read more here.

A memorial service and celebration of her life will be held on Wednesday, October 15 at 11 am at Fairmount Presbyterian Church in Cleveland Heights.

HAPPENING TODAY:

12 Noon – Tuesdays at the Covenant: organist Mikhail Grazhdanov plays music by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Juan Bautista José Cabanilles, Bernardo Storace & François Couperin at the Church of the Covenant in University Circle.

CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA ANNOUNCES BOARD CHANGES:

“Following its annual meeting on October 9, The Cleveland Orchestra announced the election of Richard J. Kramer, former Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and President of The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, as Chair of its Board of Trustees. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

German violinist, clarino trumpet player and composer Johann Christoph Pezel departed this life on October 13, 1694, having served as Stadtpfeifer and Stadtmusicus (a member of the municipal wind band) in Leipzig and Bautzen. (Pictured: the Nuremberg band) 

His music is frequently played these days by modern brass ensembles, but ensembles were more complex in Pezel’s time. As an example, listen to his Sonata Ciacona a 6 in a performance by the Baroque string band ACRONYM here (there’s a score to follow).

In 1912 on this date, Moravian-American composer Hugo Weisgall was born in Ivancice, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He moved with his family to the U.S. at the age of eight, studying at Peabody and Curtis, and completing a doctorate in German literature at Johns Hopkins — which made him a valuable aide-de-camp to General George S. Patton during World War II. [Read more…]

by Daniel Hathaway

WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS:

On Friday, October 10, the Miró Quartet (Daniel Ching & William Fedkenheuer, violins, John Largess, viola, and Joshua Gindele, cello) will continue its Complete Beethoven String Quartet Cycle celebrating the 30th anniversary of the quartet’s founding at Oberlin Conservatory. After the first two concerts on Thursday, the remaining nine quartets in this marathon will be performed over the weekend.

On Friday and Saturday at 7:30 at Severance Music Center, pianist Daniil Trifonov will join Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra for performances of Johannes Brahms’ Second Concerto, and the Orchestra will fill out the program with Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 7.

And Henry Purcell’s popular 17th-century opera Dido and Aeneas will be staged simultaneously by two organizations:

Apollo’s Fire’s period instrument version led from the harpsichord by Jeannette Sorrell, will feature Aryssa Leigh Burrs, mezzo-soprano (Dido), Edward Vogel, baritone (Aeneas), Andréa Walker, soprano (Belinda), Cody Bowers, countertenor (Sorceress), and Apollo’s Singers at the Tudor Arms Hotel (Friday at 7:30), at the Cleveland Institute of Music (Saturday at 7:30) and in Gamble Auditorium at Baldwin Wallace (Sunday at 4).

Baldwin Wallace will present its take on Dido in “a reimagined telling set within the dystopian framework of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale” at The Helen in Playhouse Square on Friday at 8 pm, and Saturday at 3 pm and 8 pm.

For details of these and other classical events, visit the ClevelandClassical.com Concert Listings. [Read more…]

HAPPENING TODAY:

At 5 pm, the Miró Quartet (Daniel Ching & William Fedkenheuer, violins, John Largess, viola, and Joshua Gindele, cello) embarks on a Complete Beethoven Quartet Cycle celebrating the 30th anniversary of the quartet’s founding at Oberlin Conservatory. The first of two concerts today in Kulas Recital Hall will open with Quartet Nos. 1-3, followed by Nos. 4-6 at 7:30. The remaining nine quartets will be performed over the weekend.

At 7:30 at Severance Music Center, pianist Daniil Trifonov will join Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra for Johannes Brahms’ Second Concerto, and the Orchestra will fill out the evening with Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 7.

And Henry Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas will be staged simultaneously tonight by two organizations: at 7:30 by Apollo’s Fire on period instruments at Morley Music Hall in Painesville, and at 8 pm by Baldwin Wallace, in a reimagined telling  set within the dystopian framework of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale at The Helen in Playhouse Square.

NEWS BRIEFS:

Cleveland.com reports that Cleveland State University’s abrupt transfer of WCSB FM/89.3 to Ideastream Public Media has sparked a protest. “Students and community members demanded the return of the station’s student-run content instead of a 24/7 jazz format.” [Read more…]

HAPPENING TODAY:

Tonight at 7:30, Country GongBang, South Korea’s first and only bluegrass band performs a distinctive blend of contemporary bluegrass and K-pop sentiments in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

INTERESTING READ:

The Guardian reports that a previously unknown printed song and a collection of keyboard music by Henry Purcell have recently surfaced in local authority archives  in Worcestershire and Norfolk… “‘As soon as day began to peep” was written for a character called Monsieur le Prate, a French fop, in a 1691 play titled Love for Money, which lampooned a girls’ boarding school. Its author was Thomas D’Urfey, a frequent collaborator of Purcell.

“…in this song, the fop is ‘not quite in control of his emotions’ in trying to woo a woman: ‘He comically compares himself to a cat howling and scratching at the door of his beloved, with Purcell representing the miaows in music.” [Read more…]